What Did You Do Today 2019

Report what you have been upto here ( preferably engineering related) Actual workshop progress can be reported here

Previous 2018 posts can be found in this thread

Edited By JasonB on 01/01/2019 07:33:31

Welcomed the new year in with the regulars at the Lamb and drunk my first 3 pints of the year. Not that that has much to to with engineering though.

Mike

Rang out 2018, chimed midnight and fired in 2019 on Rochester cathedral bells.

I also repaired one of our handbells so our visiting friends could do some ringing with us.

Watched the fireworks in Sao Bras (Portugal), with a few glasses of port and then to bed.

New years resolution to find my bag of Welsh steaming coal (if her indoors has not burned in on the fire) and get my boiler and Stuart compound steamed up.

Tried out the little Unimat that I got last Saturday, ran it on bottom speed on the standard two belt banjo, OK for up to 20 mm, it's quite quick(must put the tacho on it), I have the low speed /three belt banjo and I'll try that.

Ian S C

Already new year's day is over for those that were first in on the other side of the world.
I walked up the hill to listen to the village bells. It was so still I could hear them from my front door much louder than on a Sunday morning. There must have been some really big fireworks somewhere over the other side of the big hill from the way the sky lit up but I could see all sorts of smaller displays going off for miles around. One also realises how much spillover there is from house and streetlights.

Well last year, yesterday to be precise. The gliding club needed to get the motor glider up to Crowland (gliding site about 10 miles north of Peterborough) for annual maintenance. Apparently it's a PITA place to get to by road from Cambridge, so I agreed to fly the tug up in formation and bring the pilot back. Actually it was the pilot and his partner - no problem the tug has four seats.

The weather was a bit icky on the way up; the highest we got was 1500ft and we got rained on once. The motor glider cruises at 75kts flat out. At that speed the tug is tiddling along at 2000rpm straight and level. To avoid carb icing I flew a bit faster (more rpm) and threw the odd 360 degree turn to look at the countryside and then catch up the motor glider. Navigation was straightforward, although the Fens can be a bit tricky as there's a lot of detail but no big features that stand out. The runway at Crowland was quite short, about 460 metres, but I used less than half, and less than the motor glider. Felt a bit strange as I rarely fly the tug without a glider, and a 180ft rope, on the back. We derigged the motor glider and loaded up the tug for the trip back. I got confused about where the runway was; after all the Fens are flat, flat, flat and it's difficult to distinguish grass from the surrounding fields when it's all exactly the same level. After that hiccup we took off in about half the runway length and had a simple journey back at 95 to 100kts and half the outward journey time.

So far so straightfoward, although I'd never been to the site before, so there's always a frisson of excitement at an unfamiliar site. The strange thing is that the partner of the motor glider pilot took her dog with her. So on the way back we had 3 persons on board, plus a dog. First time I've flown with a dog as a passenger! Good job air traffic didn't ask about persons on board; 3 POB and a dog may have caused some confusion.

Andrew

That sounded like a good day out Andrew! Better than sitting in all day which is what we did.

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 01/01/2019 17:12:49

Got fed up channel-hopping trying to find something to watch that wasn't a repeat and decided to take my home-brewed boring and facing head to bits with the intention of heat treating the bits that hit each other and doing a couple of tweaks so that it runs more smoothly. I've identified the parts that need modification (only a few metric thou here and there ) and tonight I'll have a YouTube sesion to bone up on hardening and tempering. That'll be a first for me. I just hope my propane blowlamp is up to the job! Should be; the parts are pretty small.

John

Spent the last of the old year and the start of the new feeling sorry for myself due to a severe case of 'man flu'. Frustrated, because I've got some chiseling of holes in walls and re-wiring to do in the cupboard under the stairs. I don't want to be filling my lungs full of plaster dust when I'm already having trouble breathing and swallowing.

I spent the day as a signalman on a heritage railway. We had a very busy Christmas, but we are closed up now until mid February.

The last move of the day was the light engine off the last passenger train returning to the shed at the next station up the line (though it always seems odd to refer to a 9F as a light engine). As I watched her tail light disappear into the darkness I wondered if I'll get to do that again.

Her 10 years of running since last major overhaul are just about up and she will soon be in the queue to go into the works. 5 to 10 years before she comes out again would not be a surprise. We are from the same decade, and both showing signs of wear and tear. In the time it takes her to get rebuilt 'good as new', I wonder if my own deterioration will have reached the point where I am no longer able to be signalman? I did enjoy today though, and I look forward to the day I accept a 'light' engine and find a 9F coming towards me again.

Health, wealth and happiness to you all in 2019.

Edited By 60019 on 01/01/2019 19:30:03

I made some more of my coupling rods for my Brit.

Yesterday I decided that it was time to investigate the small leak in the roof of my workshop; it’s not huge just that it drips constantly when it rains and I am fed up with tripping over the bucket placed underneath it. The investigation required an excursion up and onto the roof to look for any damage in the felt, going up onto the roof had to be carried out without the wife seeing me up on the roof; she has banned me from using ladders and going onto any roofs because of existing damage to my back and paralysis on my left side, she is of course very sensible where I am not. Managed to get up on the roof and was engrossed in my task when a voice from below boomed out with “what do you think you are up to?” It was my son-in-law standing at the foot of the ladder and it transpired my wife had seen what I was up to and phoned my daughter who lives a couple of roads away and she despatched her husband to challenge me. The outcome was that son-in-law and myself agreed a repair plan which he would implement and this would keep my wife happy, and I can at last get rid of the bucket. It is frustrating being “grounded” but with my physical problems and being 72 I suppose it does make sense although in my working days I had been used to working at heights of 100 feet or so, we all have to recognise our limitations as we get older.

Dave W

4 of us went to a steam up at Whissendine by the Melton Mowbray Model Engineering Club. Had a very pleasant couple of hours and looked at and got invited to drive some lovely locos. Many thanks to the very friendly people especially the ladies keeping the supply of cups of tea and bacon butties coming. See you all in 2019.

Phew, just managed to finish the part 2 alibre exercise before the end of the holiday. I got on a heck of a lot faster with my first attempt at Fusion but still I'm getting there.
Work tomorrow so up at 5am ugh.

Started on my Dynamic Toolpost Grinder Kit from Heminway:-

(More immages in my "Dynamic Toolpost Grinder" Album)

I'll post progress on here and update the Album at the same time.

Nick.

Edited By Nick Hughes on 01/01/2019 23:15:42

A few days ago when visiting my Dad, he took me down to Knap Lake in Barry where (to out surprise on such a miserable day) there was a gathering of members of his model boat club. The lake is about a hectare in extent, with great access to the water, a hard bottom and a depth of about a metre - ideal for model boats (and I used to canoe on it as a teenager in the scouts).

There was a nice fast electric (clocked at 59 mph) and John Pugh's rather slower model of John Fitch's 1785 steam boat:

Yesterday actually; Was sorting out garage / workshop & going through measurement tooling & for some reason looked at my Wixey digi angle gauge & thought I don't have angle gauges per se. I remember seeing some on the forum some time ago, or was it YouTube ?, any how decided to have a go at making some, but using trigonometry to get the angle as I have seen from various other posters & videos.

Had a look at what stock I had & found some 5 mm aluminium plate, that will do nicely methinks so started out with the simplest - 45* & if it works out will make myself a basic set of 30* - 25* - 15*. Started off marking out from two square edges & located two centre points for drilling & reaming for supporting the hypotenuse edge in the mill. I used two 3mm milling cutter shanks as precision fit into 2 x 6 mm reamed I know that as 45* is the simplest to mark out so using the 2" square I marked out would simply mean joining two corners ( side a & side b ) with a diagonal would give the required 45*, but often the case that eyesight, slight movement of rule etc would not hit the exact corners so wanted to see how close trig' would get it. I also decided to include a step to allow for location repeatability when machining of more than one item...

Finished gauge showing stepped edge...



Using the digi gauge sat in the stepped hypotenuse as a check, already zeroed from mill table...




The digi gauge showing discrepancy of 1 minute... that could be due to a slight burr on the bottom of the digi gauge ? or maybe the vice is not 100% flat on the table etc… I had to machine the bottom of the vice some time ago as it wasn't sitting flat or square to the table, could be other factors too...



Can't complain at the 1st attempt though. Comments / tips welcomed...

George.

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Looks good, George ... but I wonder

Have you tried 'rotating' the gauge and reading from t'other side ?

... The readings should, of course, add up to exactly 90°, and a discrepancy would demonstrate a limitation in the resolution/accuracy/repeatability of the digital gauge.

MichaelG.